A French-made Chinese kung fu game "Master" is on fire.
Its gameplay is very hardcore, not only is the operation difficulty comparable to "Only Wolves", but the protagonist will get old every time he "dies", as the number of deaths increases, the speed of getting older will get faster and faster, and this aging is permanent, if the number of deaths in the previous level is too much, basically you can only start from scratch.
Its drawing style is very special, and the low polygon style has a comic-like texture.
The key to making it Chinese is that the kung fu in this game is really authentic, and some players even say that it has more Chinese kung fu charm than some domestic games.
There have been enough reviews and Amway reviews on the Internet about the gameplay of the game itself, and what really makes me admire this game the most is the respect and consideration of Chinese kung fu by its production team Sloclap. Today we will talk about how a group of French people made authentic Chinese kung fu in the game "Master".
The French heir of Chinese Kung Fu
The kung fu genre referenced in the game "Master" is Baimei Fist, which is known as the "Five Fists of Foshan" together with Cai Li Buddha, Hong Fist, Dragon Fist and Wing Chun Fist, which originated in the last years of the Ming Dynasty and is said to have been created by the Baimei Daoist of Mount Emei in Sichuan. How does this authentic traditional Chinese kung fu come to be associated with France? The story begins with a Frenchman named Bonjaman Güros.
Benjamin Colussi has been very interested in Chinese Kung Fu since he was a child, and at the age of 14, he and his father came to China, visited the Shaolin Temple for the first time, and strengthened his desire to practice Chinese Kung Fu, and also studied Chinese culture in college. Since then, he has been looking for a master in France who can teach Chinese Kung Fu, but he has never found a teacher who can teach authentic Chinese Kung Fu in his mind.
In 2006, Güros came to Shanghai, where he came into contact with Foshan Baimei Quan while teaching French and kung fu. There are many different factions of Baimeiquan, Liu Shaoliang is one of the founders of Foshan Baimeiquan, and Liu Weixin is the orthodox descendant of this faction. Liu Weixin was impressed by the sincerity of Juluos in learning kung fu, accepted him as a descendant, and gave him the Chinese name Liu Ben. Since then, the authentic Chinese kung fu school of Baimeiquan has had a French successor.
In the game "Master", Güros plays the role of a martial arts consultant, not only responsible for the design of the kung fu movements in the game, but also personally does the character's motion capture.
An orthodox descendant of Bai Mei Quan comes to do motion design and motion capture, which is why you will feel that every move has an authentic Chinese kung fu flavor in "Master".
"Old Beijing" electronic music
The soundtrack of the game "Master", the French team found a Chinese musician to work on.
Born in Hebei, Li Huadi grew up in Beijing, lived in Taipei and London, and now returns to Beijing to settle down, and the music industry may be more familiar with his English name Howie Lee. The most unique feature of his works is the combination of avant-garde electronic music and traditional Chinese instruments, and many people say that his style is "Guofeng Electronics" The following two pictures are perhaps the best interpretation of this description:
DJ Li Huadi
Li Huadi, who plays traditional instruments
On the NetEase Cloud Music Platform, the most popular work created by Li Huadi is the electronic remix version of the Golden Snake Dance (it is highly recommended to listen to it), how popular is this song? It has been 7 years since the release, and there are still fans to punch in the comment area every Spring Festival.
It is such a musician who can perfectly combine Chinese and Western musical styles, and presents a strong national style element that cannot be concealed by modern electronic music style in the soundtrack of "Master".
Not only the soundtrack of the game, but also the sound effects of the game reflect the exquisiteness of the production team. In the game, when you switch between different pages of the menu, you will hear the sound of The Guangdong Lion Drum.
The inspiration for this design is the lion awakening performance of foshan Baimei Boxing Gym.
A kung fu fan from France
In an interview with the media, pierre Tarno, the game's executive producer, talked about why they, as a French team, wanted to make an authentic Chinese kung fu game.
Sloclap's producers and creative directors are kung fu fans themselves, and many members of the team love Chinese kung fu. And unlike the crooked nuts who generally like kung fu, many of them are really practicing kung fu with their master, not just watching kung fu movies. And Sloclap's last game, Absolver, is also a Chinese kung fu theme.
In this group photo of the game development team dancing with demons, it is not difficult to see their love for kung fu.
The production team also referred to many action movies in terms of martial arts action design and narrative, including Chinese films such as "Kill the Wolf", "Police Story" and "Huo Yuanjia".
In the behind-the-scenes story of the game production released by Sloclap, what impressed me the most was their level of attention to traditional Chinese culture in detail. The game's martial arts consultant Gu Luos said that in the process of game development, the production team wanted to ensure that the martial arts scene in the game could perfectly conform to China's cultural traditions, and even let Gu Luo, who had lived in China for many years, help to find someone to ask whether the design of this martial arts scene was good or not, which surprised Gu Luo, who had studied kung fu in Foshan, a Guangdong city that pays special attention to feng shui.
As a result, the development team really made a comprehensive adjustment to the design of the martial arts hall according to the suggestions of the feng shui master, and from this detail, it can be seen that the game is really restoring the real Chinese culture.
In fact, it is not particularly unusual to create a work set in a foreign culture and to examine the details of various local cultures in a meticulous way. For example, the Americans made a "Soul of Tsushima" set in Japanese Bushido culture, although the Japanese may also be provocative when playing, after all, it is still a little difficult for Americans to fully understand Japanese culture, but at least the sincerity of the production team to respect the local culture is enough. But when it comes to Chinese culture, the situation is really different.
In fact, foreign games with Chinese cultural elements are not less, and in the questions of Zhihu, you can also see that "the best Chinese cultural games are done in foreign countries".
But many foreign-produced games with Chinese culture as the background, such as all kinds of colorful Three Kingdoms games, fun is fun, you want to say that it is authentic Chinese culture, that is also a bit exaggerated.
Perhaps these foreign production teams may not be misinterpreting with malice, but they are more or less with a sense of arrogance. It's the kind of Thing that I think Chinese culture should be like this, so I'll make it like this, and as for what kind of Chinese culture it actually is, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
What makes "Master" feel the most different is their attitude towards Chinese kung fu, that is, the two words "respect".
In fact, in the field of games, it is not a very cost-effective thing to spend a lot of experience to examine the details of the local culture. Not to mention that crooked nuts certainly do not care about the high degree of reduction, as long as it is not maliciously distorted, the degree of cultural reduction is high, even many locals may not mind, after all, many locals themselves may not know their own culture so much, such as "Three Kingdoms Matchless" Such a magic game of the Three Kingdoms is also played by many people in China.
Therefore, I really work hard to do a good job in cultural evidence, because of those two words: "respect.".
Whether the development team of "Master" is from China or France, such an approach is worth applauding. As a foreign team, it is even more valuable to be able to show respect for the culture and players of another country with practical actions.
Slocap officially wrote this ancient poem in zhihu's answer:
The last sentence of this line of poetry is "I live in the Beihai Junnanhai, and I can't send a letter to the goose." "The distance that cannot be crossed by the book of sending geese is now connected by a bridge built by a game. Mountains and rivers are exotic, the wind and moon are the same day, and the mutual appreciation in the depths of the soul has the power to span thousands of miles.